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York Ham to Boil

A boiled York ham flavored with carrot, onion, celery, and bouquet garni.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,173 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

York Ham to Boil

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the ham

  1. Soak the ham in cold water for 1 to 2 days, depending on its size and age.

  2. Place the ham in a large pot and cover it with fresh water.

  3. Bring the water to a boil and skim off any foam.

  4. Add the carrot, onion, celery, and bouquet garni.

Cook and cool

  1. Boil the ham for 15 minutes for each pound of its weight.

  2. Remove the pot from heat and let the ham cool in the cooking liquid.

  3. Once cooled, take out the ham and remove the small bone from the leg.

Trim and finish

  1. Trim the ham, remove the skin, and the small bone from the end.

  2. Dust with breadcrumbs or glaze with aspic, and decorate with a paper frill around the knuckle bone.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Ham + oniontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,159 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

  5. Ham + celerytop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,608 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-decalactone (peach, creamy).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

York ham
Provides the main meat, which is cured and cooked until tender and fully done.
Carrot
Adds aromatic sweetness and depth to the cooking liquid.
Onion
Adds savoury aroma and flavour to the cooking liquid.
Celery
Adds savoury aroma and background flavour to the cooking liquid.

The step that matters

Soaking the ham. Soaking for 1 to 2 days draws out excess salt from the cure, so the ham tastes balanced rather than overly salty once it is boiled and the liquid concentrates during cooking.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (ham, carrot, celery):

  1. Turnipfits better
  2. Parsnipfits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, carrot, celery. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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